WASHINGTON, D.C. --
BP Wind Energy and Sempra U.S. Gas & Power announced plans to further expand their strategic relationship by jointly developing the Mehoopany Wind Farm in Pennsylvania and the Flat Ridge 2 Wind Farm in Kansas, representing a total investment of more than $1 billion.

Both wind farms, which will have a combined capacity of 560 MW, are fully contracted under long-term power purchase agreements, and are expected to be in commercial operation by the end of the year.

The 141-MW Mehoopany project, which went under construction in November, is located in Wyoming County, Pa. The power output from the wind farm has been sold under contract to Old Dominion Electric Cooperative and Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative Inc. The contracts were negotiated by the National Renewables Cooperative Organization. The wind farm will utilize 88 GE 1.6-MW wind turbines and will employ some 250 workers during peak construction. The construction contract has been awarded to Renewable Energy Systems Americas Inc.

The Flat Ridge 2 Wind farm will be located on a 66,000-acre site approximately 40 miles southwest of Wichita, Kansas. The wind farm will utilize 262 1.6-MW GE wind turbines for a total capacity of 419 MW. The output from the Flat Ridge 2 Wind Farm has been sold under contracts to Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. and Southwestern Electric Power Company, a unit of American Electric Power. A third contract has been secured but has yet to be announced.

The construction contract for the Flat Ridge 2 Wind Farm has been awarded to Blattner Energy and is expected to employ approximately 500 people on-site during the peak of construction.

BP will be the operator of both wind farms when they become commercially operational.

Carl Levesque is the communications editor at AWEA. This article first appeared in the AWEA Windletter and was reprinted with permission from the American Wind Energy Association.

6 Comments

DrAlexC that is a lot of resources. Not nearly as much as building an oil tanker or refinement factory, but enough to take a couple of years of wind (over the windmills 20-30 year lifetime) to pay back the oil and coal that were needed for construction. You couldn't be more correct that it is terrible that oil and coal need to be used in the construction of windmills. Thankfully, the windmill parts can be recycled after the windmills have played out their useful lifespan. It's also nice that much of the land they are constructed on can continue to be used for farming and grazing.

Regarding electric38, his comment made no sense as a response to your initial posting.

P.s. Dr.C, making fun of someone's name is not appropriate in a forum like this, but I've gotten used to it over the years.

My education & experience with emissions/energy realities simply lead me now to advocate what many enviro orgs do: efficiency, local solar, and what Greenpeace & UCS now recognize as key -- safe nuclear. One day my Sierra Club may see the light & return to its former advocacy of nuclear too -- I'm working that, patiently. They already agree on the 1st 2 points above.

DrAlex,
Surely BP had no intention of polluting the entire Gulf Coast and much of the Mexico shoreline. The Mexican children that play in these waters and eat the sea food products are acceptable collateral damage. At least they will suffer and sustain physical damage enough to not want to cross the border to usurp American jobs. We need to look on the good side. This cruise ship that recently capsized in Italy had another 4200 ton of diesel fuel to dump into those beaches. These Italian children should be looked at in the same way. Collateral damage, pure and simple. The rich are beginning to ask where the seafood they are dining out on came from -for good reason. They can avoid to a degree the "Roots" type spittle that collaterally damages their food and drink, but now have the slight discomfort of sipping/harvesting the products that make the millions, that make their self perpetuating laws. Our best hope is that the little tykes eating the oil tainted food get to personally serve these leaders of industry and place the mints with fingers freshly pulled out of their hindquarters below their pillows.
It is slightly amusing to watch the "good ol boys" sipping spittled drink and chomping hockered hors d' oeuvres while celebrating their latest Wall Street gain.
I too, raise my glass to their achievements and pray that the spittle does not contain any traces of the AIDS virus..

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Carl is Editor & Publications Manager at the American Wind Energy Association, where has worked since 2006. At AWEA he oversees AWEA's online and print publications including the Wind Energy Weekly, Windpower Update, and other products....